This application requests support for an institutional Physician Scientist Program to provide individuals with recently-awarded M.D. degrees the opportunity to undertake up to five years of specialized study in basic sciences and supervised laboratory research experience for the development of research skills in a fundamental science. Support is also requested to provide medical students with up to two years of advanced didactic training and an intensive research experience before completing their medical studies. The aims of this program are to facilitate the development of clinicians into independent and productive investigators capable of competing successfully for NIH research support, to provide research experience early enough in the clinical career path to have an impact on clinical specialty decisions, and to promote the development of research skills in clinical areas encompassed by the NIADDK mission. This program is specifically designed as a consortium effort of basic science and clinical departments and their faculty to provide physicians in early stages of training with a broad base of knowledge and depth of experience in an area of basic biomedical science closely related to the four major program areas of NIADDK. The program is designed along two tracks. The major or Postgraduate track, provides entry for individuals with the M.D. degree who have completed postgraduate Year 01 of house staff training and are highly committed to the pursuit of a career in academic medicine and research. A second, or Predoctoral track, is intended to provide entry for medical students who have completed two or three years of the four-year medical curriculum and are prepared to undertake a limited but intensive course of study in research to further their career objectives before completion of medical studies. Faculty for this program have been identified on the basis of their recognition as outstanding and productive investigators in a basic science research area related to the program areas of NIADDK or in interdisciplinary basic science areas which underlie the Institute program areas. Potential sponsors have been drawn from the basic science departments of Anatomy, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Pathology, Pharmacology and Physiology and from the clinical departments of Dermatology, Internal Medicine, Orthopaedic Surgery and Pediatrics.